I can't find Appleton 12yr or even the Reserve anywhere. My local retailers say the distributor is out of stock so I started to check around on the internet and both look to be out of stock all over the place; Binny's, BevMo, Astor Wines and elsewhere are out of stock. Last year Appleton switched Coruba to a new importer and the rum disappeared from the market for months. I wonder if they are now moving the Appleton brand to a new importer as well, and if so how long Appleton 12 will be gone? In the meantime I'm using Plantation Jamaica 200 Pot Still Rum in my Mai Tai. It makes a good cocktail, but I prefer my standard recipe of Appleton 12/St James Hor d'Age.

Craig I haven't seen the 12 in Columbus for months. Anywhere. There's still an abundance of V/X, but yes even the Reserve is getting harder to track down. With spring around the corner, my Mai Tais will be feeling the loss of the 12 for sure.

At the end of January I purchased a bottle of 12 in one of those tin looking cardboard cases at Bevmo by my house. They had a bunch. Just the other day I went to the same place and they were totally out of all Appleton except for the cheapest. I have been shopping there for years and I have never seen the Appleton selection so slim. My only guess could be that they wanted them all to be in those new cases and the cases are tougher to make than they had anticipated. Seems strange to me though.

I talked to the buyer at a large spirits retailer yesterday and he filled me in what's happened. Campari purchased the US rights to Appleton in 2013 and are in the process of switching the brand to their distribution network. Special and V/X are the majority of Appleton's sales in the USA so they seemingly jammed as much of it into their existing distributors as they could. The bad news is that it might be quite some time before Reserve and 12 Year are back, the switch over of Coruba to a new distributor network resulted in that brand disappearing from store shelves for the better part of a year.

I short, it's time to find viable Mai Tai substitutes. Any suggestions?

I guess in my area there just aren't enough high-end rum drinkers. All the usual Appleton rums are still on the shelves in the usual quantities. Special, V/X, Reserve and Extra. In fact, I just purchased two each of V/X and Extra. There appeared to be no change in the usual price either.

_________________I bet you feel more like you do now now than you did when you came in.

That doesn't surprise me GentleHangman, Florida and California and Appleton's top volume states in the USA and home to some of their top volume on premise accounts. They probably loaded their distributors to the hilt with product before making the change so as not to lose their placements in those accounts.

Since the big liquor stores are all out of Appleton 12 year I decided to scour the smaller stores this afternoon. I went to 14 stores without luck before going into Gentleman Jim's Liquors in Covington, Kentucky right across the Ohio River from Downtown Cincinnati. There I found what I believe to be the last two bottles of A12 in the Greater Cincinnati area, and bought them both of them for $29.99 each. Guess I'm going to have to make these last for a while.

On a side note, I was at our region's largest liquor store today, The Party Source, for some St Elizabeth Allspice Dram and noticed that they are almost out of V/X as well. Guess that the supply of all of the Appleton varieties is getting thin in some areas.

I don't think you can compare Smith & Cross to any of the Appleton rums (well you can compare but they aren't similar). Its pot still flavour is much stronger - the first time I tried it I said 'ooh, it's like Wray & Nephews with wood'. For me it's a rum to experiment with but I prefer the Appletons range.

A Jamaican free mai tai is quite an interesting experience, Tiare from Mountain of Crushed Ice is the queen of demerara only mai tais & inspired some of my experimentation ( http://www.amountainofcrushedice.com/?p=15929 ). Adding 1/4 or 1/2 shots of VX might provide a Jamaican flavour?

I had been wondering if Plantations Jamaican would make a good mai tai since I saw a video of Val from PKNY using it - any feedback?

Love Party Source. Whenever I take the wife & kids down to the aquarium, I drop them off for lunch & spend about an hour in Disneyland

Quote:

On 2014-04-12 21:56, CincyTikiCraig wrote:Since the big liquor stores are all out of Appleton 12 year I decided to scour the smaller stores this afternoon. I went to 14 stores without luck before going into Gentleman Jim's Liquors in Covington, Kentucky right across the Ohio River from Downtown Cincinnati. There I found what I believe to be the last two bottles of A12 in the Greater Cincinnati area, and bought them both of them for $29.99 each. Guess I'm going to have to make these last for a while.

On a side note, I was at our region's largest liquor store today, The Party Source, for some St Elizabeth Allspice Dram and noticed that they are almost out of V/X as well. Guess that the supply of all of the Appleton varieties is getting thin in some areas.